1. Field of the Invention
Various aspects of present invention relate to simultaneously managing a plurality of associations with a plurality of variety of communication networks; and, more specifically, to managing a plurality of Internet pathways available to an end-point device that services one or more communication applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
A computer, video game box, phone, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and many other types of terminals may be connected to a communication data network. Each terminal is typically assigned a unique network address by the communication data network. The terminal receives and sends data to the communication data network using the unique network address. The communication data network may be, for example, an EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) network, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network, CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 network, Bluetooth, WiMax network, Internet, Intranet, satellite network, etc. The data typically exchanged between the terminal and the communication data network comprises media, such as text, audio, video and images, and control signals exchanged with a destination device, e.g., a server or another terminal. Media may be captured and exchanged in real time or from longer term storage.
Some terminals may connect to more than one communication data network to communicate with a destination device. For example, a terminal may have a wireless interface card and a wired interface card to connect to a WiMax network and an Ethernet LAN (Local Area Network), respectively. For a particular software application running on the terminal or for all such applications running during a period of time, the terminal sends and receives data via a selected one of the WiMax or Ethernet networks. The communication data network with which the terminal will exchange data is determined a priori. Before beginning of data exchange, the user of the terminal via a software application running on the terminal configures and selects one of a plurality of available communication data networks, e.g., the WiMax network or the Ethernet LAN, to be used for subsequent data exchange. Once decided, the terminal uses the selected communication data network and corresponding interface card to receive and transmit data.
For a variety of well know reasons, a selected communication data network often begins to exhibit unacceptable performance or goes out of service during data exchange. For example, the terminal typically connects to an access point of the selected communication data network via a wired or wireless link. Loss of service is usually related to the pathway from the terminal through such access point caused by: 1) the terminal moving out of wireless range; 2) disconnected cabling; 3) interference from other terminals; and 4) technical glitches in the access point or terminal hardware and software. Upon experiencing unacceptable performance or service failure during a data exchange, software applications running on the terminal often fail or require termination so that another communication data network can be selected by the user. Such selection often requires configuration of the newly selected communication data network as well. Occurrence of failure of one communication data network and subsequent configuration and switching to another causes significant delay and sometimes loss of data.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with various aspects of the present invention.